Jerry Rice Files: 15 Things You Didn’t Know

4. His wife’s struggles

His wife Jackie went into a coma after she gave birth to their third child, and worst of all, this occurred in the middle of the season.

Rice’s now former-wife Jackie almost died from complications after the birth their third child, Jada Symone.

Jackie’s childbirth caused serious and uncontrollable bleeding during the delivery, which resulted in Jackie falling into a coma for an entire month. Rice suffered his ACL injury in the previous year, so these were hard times for the NFL superstar.

Jackie was there for him when he had his first injury after 13 years of professional football, and now she needed him to be strong and be there for her. Rice’s team announced that he would be out for the season, but he eventually returned at the end of it. Rice had such a difficult time with this situation that he was even considering quitting football at the time.

“I came real close to quitting, and nobody really knew about it because I kept it to myself,” Rice said. “For so many years, football was No. 1 for me. But after that incident, family is first. Football is a way for me to provide for them.”

Rice was facing a lot of difficulties back then, but somehow he found the courage to pull himself together and find the strength to return to the field.

“I found out a lot of about toughness right then,” Jerry Rice said. “I was so proud of her and how she handled the situation. But it was tough on me … much more so than anybody knew because I had always been the guy that everybody leaned on in tough times. But I was scared. The fact that she’s alive is a miracle.”